ONT Re: Effective Logical Formalism -- Literature Notes
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ELF. Literature Note 6
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Gary, Jack, John, Murray, et alea,
Back to 1^2 ...
JA: Let me now pick over the initiatory paragraph and make a note
of the bones of its anatomy that I know from prior experience
are likely to be the sources of some contention in the upshot.
JA: The word "interpretation", like its cohorts in this Garden --
among whose legions we enumerate "meaning" and "semantics" --
is known to be spoken with a forked tongue, that is to say,
with many meanings, not to be intentionally recursive, but
guilelessly and hopelessly, inviting interpretation itself.
JA: To keep from going nuts about this brand of problematizing,
I can think of two tactics that have served me in the past:
A. Draw on the resources of common grounds.
B. Draw a distinction and mark it in signs.
JA: These two tactics go hand in hand, as the signs that
we draw on to determine a distinction in due measure,
are often found lying about and on our common ground.
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I will re-emphasize the benefits of this
hermeneutic heuristic, which is no idle
urging, but the best motivation I know
how to supply at the current juncture.
Under "A", let us go back to Aristotle,
who wrote the book "On Interpretation".
In this connection, I'll take a chance
on a semi-auto-reference to an article
that I can advertise with humility and
pride both, since what is intelligible
in it is to the credit of my co-author:
| Jon Awbrey and Susan Awbrey,
|"Interpretation as Action: The Risk of Inquiry",
| http://www.chss.montclair.edu/inquiry/fall95/awbrey.html
Under "B", it is time to pin the tines of
the forked tongue down to the ceratin wax
of the linguistic dissecting tray, and to
label their prevaricated duplicities with
more certain discernments than heretofore.
I my dissecting tray, I will use the labels "referent" and "semiotic"
to distinguish the independent tines of "interpretation" that concern,
on the first tine, relations between objects and signs, on the second
tine, relations between signs and signs. Let us also observe in this
connection that the referent sense of "interpretation", from language
to world, is frequently read in the reverse sense of "representation",
from world to language. Of course, usage varies wildly on this point.
Maybe that will be enough of a primer to
get the well flowing with a well-defined
direction of flux. I will pause and see.
Jon Awbrey
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